CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- As a third Muslim country pulled out of the U.N.
population meeting opening next week, U.N. officials have launched a defense
against charges that conference proposals undermine traditional family
values.

They disputed claims Wednesday that the conference action plan endorsed
abortion, homosexuality and promiscuity. They said critics, such as Muslim
fundamentalists and the Vatican, were reading things into it for political
purposes.

"Various areas of misinformation attributed to the document ...
are not there," U.N. spokesman Stirling Scruggs told a news conference.

Still, criticism was not stilled. Lebanon announced it was not coming,
and Pakistani officials said Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto might withdraw
as head of her country's delegation.

Saudi Arabia's top Islamic scholars said the conference program "contravenes
Islam and all heavenly teachings by the prophets, is against the nature
of man, is immoral and is heretic." They called on Muslims to boycott
the meeting.

Vatican officials have launched their own campaign against proposals
related to artificial birth control and abortion, and the Holy See has
been in contact with Iran and Libya to coordinate strategy on contentious
issues.

In a news conference Wednesday, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro defended
the Vatican's common cause with Muslim fundamentalists, saying, "It's
not strange in any way if representatives of other religious might have
felt a confluence with the Holy See."

Over 155 nations and 1,200 non-governmental groups are expected to send
delegations to the U.N. International Conference on Population and Development.

The program they will discuss is designed to curb the world's spiraling
population, increasing by 90 million people a year, and encourage economic
development.

Lebanon was the third Muslim nation to announce it would not send a
delegation.

Lebanese President Elias Hariri did not say why, but Hariri has close
ties to Saudi Arabia, which announced this week it would not attend. Sudan
also has said it will boycott.

Jordan announced Wednesday that it would attend despite calls for boycotting
it from the kingdom's powerful Muslim fundamentalists and other groups.

If Prime Minister Bhutto pulls out, all three women prime ministers
from Muslim nations would be absent from the conference. Tansu Ciller of
Turkey and Khaleda Zia of Bangladesh already have canceled, but both countries
are still sending delegations.

At Wednesday's Cairo news conference, U.N. spokesman Ayman el-Amir listed
improving the lot of women, creating equality for men and women and enriching
the lives of all families as among the meeting's aims.

He said these issues were being ignored as "some circles concentrated
on points of the declaration that do not go hand-in-hand with their philosophy."

Scruggs tried to counter the Islamic community's criticism of the draft
document point by point.

He denied, for example, that the document's comments on abortion amount
to endorsement.

He said the report raises the issue of the 500,000 women who die each
year of pregnancy complications, many from unsafe abortions, and urges
each country to deal with the problem "based on its own beliefs and
traditions and culture."

In fact, the document is peppered with brackets, flagging phrases still
subject to debate, including references to abortion, sexual and reproductive
health, family planning, pregnancy termination and fertility regulation.

Scruggs said complaints that adolescent sex education would encourage
promiscuity also grew out of the document's raising the problem of teen-age
pregnancy.

As for Muslims' reading of "the diversity of family structure"
as a reference to homosexuality, Scruggs said the phrase was meant to address
the trend toward more single-parent families.